Italy–Switzerland border
An Alpine border that wanders from the Matterhorn’s glaciers down to the Italian lakes, where it wraps around Italy’s tiny exclave of Campione. Where it follows melting ice, it is literally moving: in 2023 the two countries agreed to redraw it beneath the Matterhorn.
Written from cited sourcesLast checked 29 September 2026Suggest a correction
See it on the globe:Italy →Switzerland →
Lakes and anomalies
The border runs from Mont Dolent, where France, Italy and Switzerland meet, to Piz Lad on the Austrian tripoint, mostly through rugged, thinly settled Alps. It often leaves the watershed for straight lines, and in the lake country around Como, Lugano and Maggiore history has produced a tangled pattern: the Swiss Mendrisio district is cut off from the rest of Switzerland by Lake Lugano and Italian territory, and itself surrounds the Italian exclave of Campione.[1]
Because Italy unified late, the line was set by many separate states; one Italian official counted 382 documents affecting it up to 1922. The 1752 Treaty of Varese between Milan, Austria and the Swiss cantons was the first systematic delimitation.[1]
A moving border
In the high mountains much of the border follows the watershed along the crests of glaciers and snowfields. As the Matterhorn’s glacier has melted, its highest points, and the ridge joining them, have shifted towards Italy. In May 2023 the two countries agreed to redraw the line there, giving Switzerland a little more territory, and Switzerland ratified the change in September 2024; there was no dispute over it.[2]
“with the melting of the glaciers, these natural elements evolve and redefine the national border when it is defined dynamically”[2]
Timeline
More borders
Sources
- [1]International Boundary Study No. 12: Italy – Switzerland Boundary · US Department of State, Office of the Geographer · 23 October 1961
- [2]Why are Italy and Switzerland redrawing their Alpine border? · Al Jazeera · 3 October 2024
Map geometry from Natural Earth via world-atlas. See credits.